Paleontology

[2takesfrakes]

Do you love dinosaurs? I have, ever since I was a kid. So, I was hoping that they could be discussed in this forum. Talk about your favourite dinos, or new fossil discoveries, or even birds (!!!), for that matter.

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For example ...

A single fossil discovered in Italy, during the 1980's which contains impressions of soft tissues -- the innards! -- of a baby dinosaur called Scipionyx. There's a surprising amount of detail and it may even be possible that the actual claw material might've been preserved. This cannot be confirmed because of the rarity of the fossil, again ... it's the only one. This is not the only example, however, of fossilised soft tissues being preserved, but just the idea of it is very intriguing to me, because it makes them more real.

There's been so much bad CGI put out there in various dinosaur shows, attempting to make them appear lifelike, but they always screw up some detail. The eyes are in the wrong skull hole, or it's exhibiting behaviours that are entirely fictitious. But even a live ostrich can't engender the kind of awe and intrigue of a well-preserved fossil, or a mounted T-Rex skeleton.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Never been that fascinated by dinosaurs - sorry. The aspects of paleontology that interest me are how eukaryotic cells managed to evolve so far from bacteria and archaea without apparently leaving intermediate forms in existence, how multicellular life got going, whether there really was an urbilaterian organism that was the forebear of both protostomes and deuterostomes, and whether vertebrates arose from tunicate larvae that became sexually active or whether vertebrates preceded tunicates as some now believe. What exactly did vertebrates evolve from? It's been quite a while since I last looked at the current state of research into these topics.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Yes, but ... but ... what I WANTED to talk about was ... and, hey! where IS everybody? I was confident this thread would become instantly popular. I guess I just have to remind myself, sometimes, that I'm only Human. It's true, I feel that my charisma could even cure a rainy day. Very well ... so be it.

To keep it within the realm of paleontology, allow me to offer, first:
Bacteria: Fossil Record
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/bacteriafr.html

Further reading:
The Origin and Evolution of Cells
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9841/
The Evolution of the Cell
https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/cells/organelles/

- - -

As for multicellular creatures, like (extinct) dinosaurs, here's something I find particularly spellbinding:
We all know the premise of Jurassic Park, dinosaur DNA embedded in -- and extracted from -- amber. Well, this is about as close as that'll ever get and its better than fiction! So very much better ...

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[Owain Taggart]

With one of my Uncles being a paleontologist (who teaches at UPenn), I've often been treated with some of his stories. One of my favourites is (and I don't know how much truth there is to it) that when it came time to naming a dinosaur, he named it after his wife, but that in retrospect it probably wasn't a very good idea to call your wife a dinosaur

He's had some very interesting adventures. The latest being that he travelled to China as part of a National Geographic TV series for an episode on new findings on feathered dinosaurs. This was unfortunately right around the time about 3-4 years ago when news of a hoax was spreading, so news of any legitimacy unfortunately got sidelined.

Years before that, his last big expedition was to Egypt with some of his students from UPenn, which got heavily chronicled by getting both a book and a documentary, about dinosaur species that had been recently rediscovered as of 2002. The entire story in itself is pretty epic.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077283/n...st-dinosaurs-rediscovered-egypt/#.W2TS2rhG2Uk

Here's an excellent writeup on the history behind it:
https://paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/ernst-stromer-and-the-lost-dinosaurs-of-egypt/

About 5 years ago, we were all cleaning out my grandparent's house after both of them had passed away and he'd had rediscovered a bone specimen from his early days of digging and gave it to me. It's very fragile to the point that it already broke once and had to glue it back together.

 

[2takesfrakes]

That's a great post, Taggart! Very interesting, indeed.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Sorry, I've never been very fascinated by dinosaurs - their genome had probably equilibriated to approximately the same size as modern vertebrates and we have birds as their descendants. From a marketing point of view, it might have been better to give this thread a title that is more specific to the particular area of palaeontology that interests you.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I suppose one might call it the Historical Science aspect of paleontology that interests me about it. The descriptions of what's existed before and how it relates. I'm also interested in the eXperimental aspect of it, involving such things as testing whether soft tissue exists in fossils and what can be extracted. I'm also interested in the geology of the terrain the fossils are embedded in. What the rocks, themselves, tell us. I'm also interested in amateur fossil hunting, collecting ... and preparation (Every once in a while I'll order from these guys):
http://www.ulrichsfossilgallery.com/product/fossil-preperation-kit/

So, in short: everything ... you know? ... just everything! Take this video describing five new dinosaur discoveries that reveal what they looked like in Real Life:

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[2takesfrakes]

I actually volunteered, for a time, at The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, where I was allowed to work on actual fossils. Let me first clarify that these were not "important" fossils. It's hard to explain, briefly. But whilst in transit, a common sauropod fossil had once been vandalised by someone believing the field jackets it was held in were filled with recently unearthed gold, took a sledgehammer to at least one of them. These broken pieces, some of them quite whole, actually, were what we got to work on. But it was a real fossil of a real dinosaur, and what I was assigned was a piece of backbone about the size of a, uh, microwave oven, maybe.

And so, I'm drilling the earth off it and the whole bit and the one who assigned me this rare privilege (with nothing but a background in sculpture to back me up) was Jason Poole. He is manager of Dinosaur Hall and, like me, he's also an Artist. This is Jason drawing on a gigantic, old fashioned chalkboard, with coloured chalk, a life-sized hadrosaur in time-lapsed photography. He's also in an inset, giving his little spiel ...

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He wasn't really a friend of mine, or anything like that, but he was an excellent supervisor and always very cool to deal with. As fellow Artists, we spoke the same language, which helped me, a lot. Most importantly, he let me feel like I was Dr. Alan Grant, or some shit, for which I'm eternally grateful. Unfortunately, Reality placed demands on my time and I couldn't commit to it indefinitely. But I wish I could have. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, he's got a really cool website featuring his Dinosaur Artwork -- drawings and paintings that I'm sure will impress. Maybe, a couple videos in there, too ...

http://dino-scribbles.blogspot.com/

 

[sekundant]

Ohh, I love Dinosaurs!
As I was child we always spend our summer holidays at grandma. There was a locked library room from my late grandpa. Once grandma had forgot to lock the room. I should be 5.5 years old, so I could read. I remember dark walnut shelves full of books, many many books without pictures. Then I found tapes of encyclopedia with full colored drawings. I was enchanted. After too many tears and begging, I could get in the room for an hour everyday and read the encyclopedia. And there were dinosaurs, every kind of them, but my favorites were Triceratops and Sauropods. They looked very friendly.

The knowledge that birds are successor of dinosaurs is very new, so far as I know. We are "pretty sure" about this since 10-15 years, not more. My ohh my, we are eating dinosaurs, when we eat chicken tandoori! It is crazy.

@2takesfrakes Did you read the book " The Dinosaur Hunters: A True Story of Scientific Rivalry and the Discovery of the Prehistoric World" by Deborah Cadbury? It is one of my favorite science books, it is so entertaining and can be breathless read like a thriller.

 

[2takesfrakes]

No, I've not read that particular book, but palaeontologist Richard Fortey recommends a few books on the subject:
https://fivebooks.com/best-books/richard-fortey-on-palaeontology/

As to birds being dinosaurs, that idea was fronted very early on, as I understand it, but because no wishbone had ever been found in association with dino fossils, the idea was abandoned, or at least, redefined. Birds were not direct decendents of dinosaurs, they just shared a common ancestor, was what was finally arrived at. But there were also competing theories by influential people and the bird thing kind of got dropped until the 1960's when John Ostrom recognised the skeletal similarities of Deinonychus to modern birds. Also, dinosaur wishbones have since been dug up with more recent fossils. And have you ever noticed how an ostrich sort of looks like gallimimus? Ostrich, I'm told, kinda tastes like beef and is very lean, actually. Imagine that drumstick on your plate ...

NAT GEO's "Focal Point" programme gets all up in it, with the Dinosaur/Bird connection, in this 3 minute segment:

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[sekundant]

Thank you for the link! Douglas Erwin's Extinction is already ordered.

Shame on me, we are talking about science and I am using very unqualified terms like "successors".
You do not believe, a friend of mine showed me an old drawing of Gallimimus and asked the same question:
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fájl:Gallimimus_Steveoc86.jpg
It would be interesting, if scientist find at China/ Inner Mongolia some soft tissue fossils from the breed.
I tried once the ostrich steak more than 15 years before, yes it tasted definitely like beef, but consistence was surprisingly very fine not like beef or may be cook was very good.
I cannot imagine the drumstick of gallimimus at my plate but I can imagine my self at the plate of Carnotaurus! (Damned Jurasic Park effect. Like Jaws films which made unfairly the sharks the brutally predators, all the Dinosaurs are T-Rex now! )





https://fivebooks.com/buy/0691136289

 

[Owain Taggart]

As to birds being dinosaurs, that idea was fronted very early on, as I understand it, but because no wishbone had ever been found in association with dino fossils, the idea was abandoned, or at least, redefined. Birds were not direct decendents of dinosaurs, they just shared a common ancestor, was what was finally arrived at.

Yeah, it's quite interesting that while there was the idea floated early on, but that it only rather recently become an accepted theory due to recent finds. So, earlier researchers definitely were aware of a possible connection but couldn't ultimately prove it.

And then you have the whole 'Brontosaurus' thing making us recalculate what we know about about the sauropods seeing that the Brontosaurus never actually existed, but instead was based on a reconstructed idea with incorrect bone placements.

In response to horned dinosaurs, my Uncle wrote a book on the subject, and it's really quite fascinating just how many subspecies of Ceratops there are, the TriCeretops just being one of many. It makes you wonder just how many other subspecies of other dinosaurs there might have been.

That's a great post, Taggart! Very interesting, indeed.

Thanks! Oh and while researching The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt, I came upon another recent find in Egypt from January of this year, which they say is so significant, it's like finding the corner piece on a puzzle. Some very exciting discoveries are being made in that corner of the world at the moment.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/manosourasaurus-dinosaur-1.4472582

 

[2takesfrakes]

You were lucky to have an uncle like that, someone knowledgeable you could talk to about dinosaurs and an expert on it. I thought my father would get a dinosaur hunter license with me and we'd go out and find fossils like Dr. Alan Grant and Billy in JURASSIC PARK III, because Dad likes digging up arrowheads and whatnot. But he wasn't keen. And about the wishbone thing, as it turns out there were wishbones found in earlier dinosaur finds, but they were misidentified, because they don't quite look the same. Now, of course, they're extracting so much more information from fossils, like what colours their feathers were and things like that. Even whether they had a comb, like a rooster, or not, as one duckbill dinosaur so had. I forget the name of it, right now. But you're right, there are still very exciting discoveries being made. Thanks for the link!

Thank you for the link! Douglas Erwin's Extinction is already ordered.
Shame on me, we are talking about science and I am using very unqualified terms like "successors".
You do not believe, a friend of mine showed me an old drawing of Gallimimus and asked the same question:
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fájl:Gallimimus_Steveoc86.jpg
It would be interesting, if scientist find at China/ Inner Mongolia some soft tissue fossils from the breed.
I tried once the ostrich steak more than 15 years before, yes it tasted definitely like beef, but consistence was surprisingly very fine not like beef or may be cook was very good.
I cannot imagine the drumstick of gallimimus at my plate but I can imagine my self at the plate of Carnotaurus! (Damned Jurasic Park effect. Like Jaws films which made unfairly the sharks the brutally predators, all the Dinosaurs are T-Rex now! )

Wow ... I'm trying to avoid meat, but I wish I'd tried ostrich, just once! That's cool you did, though. You're right about movies showing us the wrong things about dinosaurs, but ironically, the main audience they're going for - teens and younger - they know ALL about what dinosaurs REALLY were like. They do! When I volunteered at the museum, I'd get to hear about this stuff all the time. I remember a woman scientist working there was introduced to me, one time, and Jason's telling me she has some fossil theory or another and I just nodded my "understanding," as she got all into the minutiae of it and everything. On and on she's going, she got all happy with it. I still don't know what the hell she was talking about, to be honest.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Yeah, my Uncle's a pretty cool guy. I don't often get much of a chance to talk to him these days but it's always fun seeing what he's been up to. There was one time we got to talking about Robert T. Bakker and how they had gotten a pretty good lookalike for one of the movies (Either the first or second, I can't remember), but Bakker wrote a pretty good novel from the point of view of a dinosaur called Raptor Red. My Uncle also ended up becoming one of Creighton's sources for the novel version of The Lost World.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Lost World had the Bakker-inspired paleontologist who, like Dr. Bakker himself, fears snakes. So, when a snake jumps on him in the cave with the T-Rex sticking his head in, he starts jumping and dancing around and ends up in the Rex's mouth and gets snacked on! The one uncle I had that was particularly noteworthy was an uncle of me mum's actually, her maiden name is Reese. This uncle of hers made some major contribution to some wing of the Smithsonian, I don't even know. She went on about it before, but who remembers? But talk about noteworthy, Dinosaur National Monument is absolutely incredible. Some major finds have been there, including dino graveyards and large trackways ...

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[Owain Taggart]

Haha yes, now I remember. It was a short but very memorable role.

Oh yes, I've been to Dinosaur National Monument. It really is quite incredible. Probably a place more people should know about. Interesting thing is, there's a trail that you can follow out in back that leads to log cabin of what was the home of a woman living alone and presumably having ties to Butch Cassidy. My Dad visited Dinosaur National Monument in the 60's, and according to records, she would have still been alive back when he first visited, but that particular home was off-access at the time. Now you can go there and actually walk through it.

 

[Velocity]

I have always been interested in dinosaurs since I was a tot. Way back then, the scientific consensus was that dinosaurs were big reptiles and the large sauropods like Diplodocus had to have spent most of their life in water to support their great weight. We have come a long way since then. It has been exciting to see all the new information about dinosaurs.